I had no real problem with your point last time either. Still, it is amazing the infinite number of rationalizations humans have come up with over the centuries to show that their whims are more important than reason.

You can point to the arithmetic of cheap consumer goods as demonstrating the superiority of American society all you want, but that argument does nothing to address the feeling that Americans have been reporting for years, that they're feeling vaguely unfulfilled and unsatisfied with all that material abundance, and that "surely there's more to life than this?". That's the intrinsic emotional substrate of the human mind that you, and all Conservatives, alternately ignore or deplore.

There are a number of ideas on where this feeling of unfulfillment comes from. I doubt it's normally the result of an overabundance of rationality. Ironically, you seem to find it most often in people who have decided that the old value system is outmoded, religion is useless, and families and others are not as important as your own self-fulfillment. Are these typically conservative views?

Don't mush me in to much with normal American conservatism. It's not a good match. My views are not that common out there, but most of your responses seem tuned to my views, not to conservatism in general. Obviously, you couldn't really accuse the average conservative of an excess of rationality over emotion, right?

As for the rest, of course there's a lot more to a free society than prosperity, but I do notice that material abundance seems to be most often derided by those who have spent all their lives wallowing in it. Those who know what want really is often have different views.